Lugari MP Ayub Savula (pictured) will spend the weekend in police cells after he was arrested on Friday over millions of shillings defrauded from the Government Advertising Agency (GAA).
In a tweet posted last night, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) revealed Savula will be charged on Monday with conspiring to steal Sh122,335,500 from the agency that falls under the Ministry of Information and Communication.
The MP, a former journalist who runs Sunday Express, a weekly political newsletter, was arrested in Nairobi by DCI officers and was being held at the DCI headquarters.
The GAA has been on the spot over billions of shillings owed to several media houses in unpaid adverts.
In August, Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Noordin Haji ordered a probe into the agency and its officials over Sh2.8 billion owed to the media houses.
The agency was created in 2015 to handle all government advertisements in electronic and print media. It publishes My Gov, a weekly insert distributed in the dailies. And although government parastatals and departments remit money to the agency, it has not been paying the media houses their dues. Instead, the Sh2.8 billion has been paid to 99 ghost companies, the DCI probe unearthed.
The DCI is also looking for 22 senior employees of the ICT ministry and staff from the Integrated Finance Management System (IFMIS) at National Treasury who are believed to have authorised payments running in to millions of shillings to ghost companies. Also on the DCI’s crosshairs are a former Permanent Secretary, a secretary in the ministry of ICT and a former director.
Haji gave the green light for the arrests early this week after the DCI completed a two-month probe into the fraud at the GAA. The police have framed seven charges against the officials.
The GAA owes Standard Group Sh829.7 million, Nation Media Group Sh857 million and Star Publications Limited Sh469.3 million.
It also owes Mediamax Network Sh586.3 million and Royal Media Services Sh75 million. “There are advertising companies that were paid some big amounts of money but when searched from the registrar of companies they were found not to exist. They are not registered,” says part of the police report.
Some of the suspect companies which received the monies include The Star Publication, Liaison Media Nairobi, Extra Publications, Sunday Express, Tribute Media Network Limited and Health Africa Limited.
The Standard Group Plc is a
multi-media organization with investments in media platforms spanning newspaper
print operations, television, radio broadcasting, digital and online services. The
Standard Group is recognized as a leading multi-media house in Kenya with a key
influence in matters of national and international interest.
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